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The beginning of this entry will be somewhat nostalgic. You know, we have been thinking. When the internet became available for masses in the early 90’s, we have been the first ones in our high schools to realize that a new era has begun. Nobody else but us (and that included our IT teachers!) paid attention to the first appearing forums, fans gatherings, web rings and early fan made HTML websites that would make your hair stand on their ends if you have seen them today. There was no Youtube, no Facebook, no Google and Twitter has not yet been invented. Mind you! Yahoo was just starting up and Altavista was the place to go. To listen to the new music, we had to stay up till 4 am and listen to Atlantic 252 (in Poland!) or Z-rock top 40 to record the songs from the radio while covering the speakers with our pillows and trying not to wake up our parents and neighbours. The bands we loved were as distant as the galaxy far, far away. We gathered and treasured every piece of information, a press article and interview we laid our hands on. If somebody would have told me back then that soon we would be able to know what the artists had for lunch or what they wore on their way to the dentist, I would have laughed. Celebrity gossips do not make us laugh at all but I hope you get the point. 15 years ago music industry was a magical thing. It was a different realm, million miles from you, ruled by the CD, record companies and The Billboard. Fans were important of course, after all they were the source of income for the industry, but they had little to say. As you know, things have changed. A lot.

John & Brittany ‘s Poster for the Kickstarter campaign. Used with permission

Some would say they have changed for the worse, some would say they’ve changed for the better. After several years of running e-commerce and social media campaigns for various artists and video games industry, we stand in the middle. We have seen the good, the bad and the (really) ugly side of this business. Since opening of the blog in 2009, we have been asked many times why do we keep on going. If you want to know, it’s because we love what we do. Maybe it’s because the good surpasses the bad. Or maybe because the fans are finally in control. And how much power they have!

Fan campaigns, pledge campaigns, Internet collective funding, fundraisers, crowd funding or whatever you want to call those projects, are on the raise. It’s not our intention to explain how the social funding works; you all know it by now. However, an effective campaign must be run properly to succeed. It must be well prepared, thought out and promoted. Without it, your campaign will fail and you will find yourself in a situation where you won’t be able to deliver what you promised. Believe us – broken trust has been the death sentence to many brilliant projects. What can you do? Learn from the best. Ladies and gentlemen – please take a look at the stellar example of a campaign that has been prepared right – and it pays off (literally!). Let us introduce you to John Faye and Brittany Rotondo – of Philadelphia duo John & Brittany.

1.Website

Don’t be angry, we are not stating the obvious. Before you even start thinking about gathering funds for your project, you will need a website. Forget about WordPress blog or Facebook page – they won’t do. Build a proper website with several sections, pictures, drawings, links and everything else that will help you explain who you are and why you need the support. Being lazy will turn away the prospective funders. A single logo with the link to your Myspace/Youtube page is a suicide move. If you are in a band and the management is running your website, make sure they listen to you, otherwise fire them. Myspace is not popular anymore, anyway. You don’t want to hang out with the old news, do you? 😀

John & Brittany’s website. Screenshot by Rita Dabrowicz

John and Brittany know how to attract the attention. Their website has all the right buttons and all the hot stuff. The information about their campaign is also displayed in the centre – all eyes on it! You can pay them a visit and see for yourself: http://johnbrittany.com/

2. Social media

Facebook: God may have given us rock and roll, but Mark Zuckenberg gave us Facebook. It’s free so use it. You have several options here: you can create groups, community pages, or a profile. If you have a personal wall, make sure your friends and visitors know about it. Don’t be afraid to advertise yourself – the more people know about you, the better (but forget about spamming). Also give credits to photographers and fans. Talk to them, exchange opinions, post videos and snapshots. Have fun, but stay in control. Only you know how the campaign should look like and stick to your plan. A sense of humour is a great marketing tool as well. Did you know that John and Brittany write songs about robbing banks? Now you do!

Events: The great thing about Facebook is that it allows you to create a multiple events and link them to your profile or community page. They are super easy to manage: you can activate and close them as you please, add and remove applications and you even see how many people you invited and how many have replied. Once you have several events, they make a nice little timeline too. Oh, and you won’t forget the dates either, Facebook will remind you that your event is getting closer.

Youtube: Youtube channel for a music projects is a must have. Make it look professional and clean. Again, something that should be obvious for all but it’s not always the case. Do not use band pictures/album covers as backgrounds here, it makes your channel look terrible and it’s hard to read anything. If you must, use graphic program and make them semi transparent or darker. On their channel, John and Brittany post special videos made especially for the Kickstarter event and acoustic covers – a perfect treat for their fans, as you will not find them anywhere else. Updates are being posted every week- they build the interest in the band and make the people come back for more. This is how you do it!

Twitter: Twitter took the world by storm by offering short message service that can be sent and exchanged with others. You can post everything you wish: from simple hellos to announcements and business statements. Twitter golden rule is: be quick, straightforward and to the point, as you have limited amount of characters you can use. The life span of Twitter message is 20 minutes. It doesn’t disappear and will be visible on your own “wall” but this is how long it takes for a message to go out of the main page. When campaigning, you may want to post messages every few hours, especially in the last days of your fundraiser, just to remind people and build up the tension. You can also follow all your fav artists, newspaper, music magazines, industry people as well and even re-tweet their messages to your profile. Twitter is a great tool but must be used systematically. Posting once every few months will make you look bad. Really bad.

John Faye’s personal Twitter account used to promote the campaign. Screenshot by Rita Dabrowicz

There is also another good thing about Twitter. It works like good old IRC channel (remember that medium anybody?) It incorporates topics into “channels” that can be easily accessed with a hash-tag (#). Millions of channels exist inside the Twitterverse, some are popular, some are hardly used. It is good to know which ones to use to reach your audience. In our endeavours, we tend to use several groups:

Once you are set up on Twitter, you will be able to come up with your own tags or will discover new ones, but if you don’t know where to start, you are welcomed to use ours. Don’t forget to shorten links to save space in your messages. For that you can use www.tinyurl.com

Reverbnation – Reverbnation is a social network for music industry professionals. If you are promoting your band, setting a profile here can be very useful. It not only links you to two million other users, but also helps you to gather all useful information in one single place: Youtube subscribers, Facebook fans and likes, song & video plays and many others. Reverbnation allows you to contact prospective venues and clubs managers as well to book a gig. If you are successful, a map will be added to your profile showing your fans the quickest way to your concert. Special button called “book the band” makes it easier for others to approach you too – the communication works in both ways! Another great bonus is the press section – you can post quotes from interviews or newspaper reviews to show where your name appeared in print. John and Brittany’s page on Reverbnation has been called one of the best among new coming bands.

Revebnation’s profile for John and Brittany. Screenshot by Rita Dabrowicz

All right, let’s say you have website and several social profiles ready. Now it’s time to present your idea to the world. The first rule is to choose a reliable website that won’t make people think that you are a scam artist. You have several options here like: PledgeMusic (www.pledgemusic.com), Kickstarter (www.kickstarter.com), Sellaband (www.sellaband.com) or Artistshare (www.artistshare.com) to name a few.

John and Brittany decided on Kickstarter as it fitted them perfectly. Browse the Internet and look for reviews from other artists. Do not decide on a website just because a friend of yours recommended it. Be certain that this is what you want – we have seen a great campaign going down the drain just because the manager thought it will be a splendid idea. It wasn’t and it returned to bite the poor fellows in the rear.

Screens from the Kickstarter fundraiser trailer taken by Rita Dabrowicz

If you can finance the project yourself – do it! There is no need to collect the money from others when you have the funds. It will be quicker and will save you a lot of grief. The same goes if you have already acquired sponsors earlier. When people find out you had the money to pay for the project in the first place, the whole idea of community support falls through. In short – do it only if you really miss the vital funds. Take note that most campaigns work on the all – or – nothing basis. You either raise 100% and you receive the funds, or you wont receive them at all (if your targets are not met) hence it is important to really promote it. Sitting around and waiting for a miracle won’t do. It will only turn those who involved themselves into the campaign sour, your fan base will be divided or feel betrayed and in the end whatever was built, will crumble like a house of cards.

Main page of John and Brittany Kickstarter campaign. Screenshot by Rita Dabrowicz

John and Brittany know exactly what they want and they went for it. The results? Over 7,650 $ raised in nearly three weeks (remember – not every website will give information how much money were collected. PledgeMusic for example will only display % results of your campaign). Please take a look at the screen shot of their main Kickstarter page. It includes a very detailed bio, description of the whole project and the terms and conditions: what can you “buy” from the band, when the product will be delivered (estimated delivery) and how the band can fulfil their obligations (within 150 miles of Philadelphia or anywhere in the Continental US if you want the VIP package). The rules are clear and the band won’t have to worry how to transport their gear if the VIP living room gig is purchased by the Arctic explorers 😀

John and Brittany’s campaign is featured on the main page of Kickstarter website. Screenshot by Malicia Dabrowicz

When your campaign becomes popular with the public, it can be placed at the first page of your chosen site. You’ll need a bit of luck with that but crowd founding websites are looking for successful stories so drop them a line of your achievements. John and Britt have been chosen as their campaign had an excellent start. We have taken a screenshot when they appeared in Discover New Music section on Kickstarter.

Staff members chose John and Brittany’s campaign as their favourite. We cannot blame them! Screenshot by Malicia Dabrowicz

The second screenshot was taken when the campaign has been picked by the Kickstarter staff. We do not know how can you influence them to be picked up (maybe send them a cake?) but it is considered a true honour. Staff picks up three finished and three ongoing campaigns for every city and the artists are displayed under the Discovery tab.

Campaign updates: Crowd founding is all about updates. They are the heart and soul of the whole project and without them your readers will forget that the campaign is still ongoing. Make sure you have something interesting to say at least once every two weeks. Adding pictures and videos will make them look even better. What ever you do, don’t post a single sentence updates – you know why and we hope we don’t have to explain!

John posts an update on Kickstarter campaign page, thanking fans for the support.Screenshot by Malicia Dabrowicz

John and Brittany posted a long and detailed update with big thanks to those who donated.

You do not have to be a professional musician to sell your music. Opening an Internet store with your music can generate more funds for your big project and help people to become familiar with your previous albums (if you have them!). John & Brittany’s songs can be downloaded on iTunes. Go and buy them before they are replaced with something new!

John and Brittany’s iTunes store. Screenshot by Rita Dabrowicz

We hope you enjoyed this small report regarding crowd financing as it stands today. Perhaps it will inspire you to promote your favourite musicians better. Mal and Rita would like in this point to pay respect to the heroes who started the whole trend of self-financing, before self-financing was cool. There is a band that paved the road 12 years ago, when nobody even dreamt of Pledge Music and Kick Starters.

Thank you Marillion 😀

Please return soon as we have spoken with John and Brittany and we will be posting their confessions online very soon!

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Today at the office I showed the blog to a couple of colleagues and they were all very suprised that I was writing. I mean they all know pretty well that I am inseparable with my heavy Canon but somehow nobody realized that I was also into short – stories and poetry. It got me thinking. Both Rita and I write since we were able to hold a pen. We`ve got a whole cabinet full of notes, stories, poems, lyrics, how on earth nobody knows that we do it?

Oh well, did we ever advertise it? Hardly.

Perhaps a good moment arrived to change it.

Below you will find two lyrics. One by me and one by Rita. Accidently they are both written on the 20th of January, but there is six years between them. They are not poems, they are song lyrics without music. They are extremly personal, and that is a reason we do not show them so often.

I will however try to change it and post some of the lyrics on the blog in the future.

But I also want to combine the lyrics with the artworks. I have always loved “Perspective nr 4” that Rita did a while back. It goes just perfect with the piece as it adds another meaning to the text. “As needed for” is my homage to Mike Williams, who was one of my main influences as a songwriter. You may know him as a lead singer of “EyeHateGod”. It has a lot of layers and references, second stanza doesnt require any explanation if you remember Al Rosa Villa incident…

Image by Rita

As needed for…

And as the levee broke
We cried your names
Water drowns the fear untill you remember to

Report the loses

Departed – not dead
Separated – not gone
We did what had to be done

And as the shots died out
We bled with you
Words bear no meaning untill you have to

Bury a brother

Departed – not dead
Separated – not gone
Through suffering respect is earned

And as you were dying
We starved with you
Bread mixed with water untill you shed

Your disease away

Departed – not dead
Separated – not gone

Take as needed for

your pain

January 20th 2011

I have always wanted to illustrate “Seattle Rain”, i find this piece hauntingly beautiful. It deals with the loss of somebody we have always respected and admired. The polaroid to this lyrics is called “Troubled Moon” after a song by Devil Head. It is a sister polaroid to the “Way of blue” that I created a year ago.

Digital polaroid by Mal

Seattle Rain

Been there waiting
Sitting on the doorstep
Seen your moon shining bright

The day never came
Once again I was lost
Hungered and dreaming of u

How much lie is in the truth I was told?
How much truth is in the song that I sing?
I got nothing to lose but myself
In this cold Seattle rain

The shadows they move
Dance on the egde of my view
Close my eyes not to see

My voice is unheard
All my questions uncalled
My love’s buried deep

How much life is in the death I have known?
How much death is in the life that I live?
You got nothing to lose but myself
In this cold Seattle rain

I can’t reach the other side
With all the stoplights so green
And I heard your scream through it all
It was our last year like this

How much lie is in the truth I have known?
How much death is in the song that I sing?
We had nothing to prove but ourselves
In this cold Seattle rain

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Pardon me that this post will be a bit of emotional. I wasnt sure If I wanted to make this entry in general. But then again, life is short, sometimes you have to do what feels right.

On this blog I have stated many times, that music is probably the most powerful force that drives both me and Rita `s creativity. We listen to a lot of stuff, all possible genres and combinations. From Abba to ZZ Top, from Snap! to Canibal Corpse, from Samael to Jars of Clay (that last one being black metal to christian rock, seriously). Music not only inspired us from day one but also helped us through some really hard time: the high school, our mother`s long ilness, incredibly stressful studies.

Despite our enourmous knowledge of bands, there is perhaps a handful of artists that really mean a world to us. Their art was played in the darkest hours, I am not trying to be melancholic now. One of them was Alice in Chains, another such band was Death. Both Layne and Chuck will never grace the stage again. December 13th is actually the 9th anniversary of Chuck Schuldiner`s passing away.

I wasnt so much into Death in the beginning. I knew Rita was mad about them because at that time she must have had half of the Tampa scene on her bedroom wall. And since we shared a room together, I`d see Morbid Angel, Cynic or Death first thing in the morning. I used to tease her that she had created a Morrisound Wall (named after the studio where all the bands would record). Not like I was any better, since she was waking up to a collage of Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Type of Negative posters. The poster war ended around our 16th birthday. That day my sister would receive a stake of cassettes (back then Cds were extremly expensive, I know prehistoric times), among them Whitney Houston “Whitney” and Death “Human” As far as I remember they both came in the same box. Before you will think I am lying: it was considered perfectly normal. My presents included Mother Love Bone and My Dying Bride albums respectively.

Photo by Rita

Few weeks after, I`d start to listen secretly to Death. I had to admit I began to like the band.

But it wasnt until one day at school that I truly appreciated Death. My high school years were made in hell: drug abuse among students and intensive bullying were monstrous. I had a share of the latter one particular day. It may sound trivial after the years, but I had to withstand a session of verbal abuse in front of just about everybody while being on stage and performing for a school drama. I faced the people and finished my part but right afterwards just ran away to the darkest corner of the building. Then it was me and the music Chuck created. And the incredible lyrics he wrote. I still know some of them by heart.

Chuck`s music was later with me when my mom nearly died and years had to pass before she would be better. They say a friend in need is a friend indeed. You can guess not many friends we had at that time. But the music remained. I have never meet Chuck in person, but what he had created, his music allowed both Rita and I to survivre draconian period. And for that I will always consider Chuck a friend.

On December 13th 2001, Id come home from university and find Rita sitting in total silence watching the walls in our old room. There would be no more Morrisound bands there but I knew what she was thinking. We heard Chuck was ill but we had hoped for the best. It had to get worse to get better again, it was like that with our mom, it would be the same with Chuck. He was young he had so much to do.

But there was announcement on Roadrunner Records (I remember a friend later calling in to confirm it as well). It was over. Chuck was gone at the age of 34 due to brain turmor.

Nine years had already gone, in a blink of an eye. I still find it hard to believe sometimes.

In 2009 Rita made a painting which she entitled Altamonte. Its named after a place where Chuck resided. It is said to be really beautiful, full of bright colours. So is the painting. She had put a quote on it and dedicated it to Chuck`s mom Jane who does a hell of a great job protecting and representing her son`s work. I always tell her its a beautiful piece and once suggested to send it to Jane, but Rita is afraid that Jane perhaps wouldn`t like it.

I have recently framed it, so I want to share some photos of it right now:

Artwork by Rita Dabrowicz

Photo by Mal

Photo by Mal

If somebody wishes to see it on Rita`s Deviant Art page, heres the link:

Silly thing, a week ago, I was asked to participate in the Christmas Ruffles lottery at the office. The funds will be donated to a house that helps children, it acts both as a home and a hospice, unfortunately. I thought I`d buy one ticket, but when when I was asked to choose a number I couldnt think of any “lucky” one. Then just under the impulse I decided to take number 13. My group leader gave me a strange look as it is considered to be opposite to any lucky number one can think of. But I didnt care. 13th December was just around a corner and If I could do even a smallest thing to turn that bad day into something positive, then I was for it. You can see the ticket on the box of Christmas Cards I am about to start sending out. Crazy small thing, but makes a big difference, believe me.

Photo by Mal

It turned out to be a long post and very personal. Perhaps nobody will read it, but then if I didnt put up a personal piece once in a while, it wouldnt be my blog;)

There is a beautiful line from a song by Sentenced called “Lower the flags”. “Farewell my friend, you will be missed” – if I could say anything to Chuck, I guess that`s what Id say. Perhaps, a good old “Keep on rocking in the free world” to it as well.

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Dear All,

copyrights by Getty Images/MTV Unplugged

Today is quite a special day. August 22 is a birthday of Layne Staley, the vocalist of Alice in Chains. Layne was a friend, though we have never met. But his music helped us through some really hard periods: high school and university struggle and our mom’s illness. We always intended to tell him how much his music meant to us but we have never managed.

On April 5th 2002 Layne had passed away losing a long battle against the addiction. We like to say that he returned to Olympus (as Andrew Wood once mentioned).

Layne had always been an inspiration to us and today we would like to share that inspiration a bit. Some years ago, Rita had come with a sketch of a manga character named Lain (from Serial Experiments Lain), who’s name sound exactly the same as Layne’s. Too strengthen the connection, Rita dressed the character in Alice in Chains t-shirt (with the sun emblem).

Today Rita decided to colour the sketch.

artwork by Rita

From my side, I decided to take a photo. Not just any photo. Recently I have bought a vintage Polaroid camera and I am teaching myself to take photos with it. Since the film I have is having a blue/silver effect to it I am calling the photo I took ‘Way of Blue”. It is also a reference to the latest album by Alice in Chains –“Black gives way to blue”.

In my photos I reflect the urban side of life, and this photo is no exception. It is a wall of a old building with the cracks and paint peeling down.

But there is a lot of light in it, giving it some kind of reflection. It is still blues and blacks but every Polaroid has also a silver lining…

actual polaroid by Mal

We would love to be in Seattle last night to attend Layne`s annual memorial concert. Since we are half the world away we decided to do some art and just send our love to the Emerald City.

If you would like to visit the website of Layne Staley Fund please go here:

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Evening,

We have been thinking about making this post for a while. Art and music had always been our passion and we love to combine them. Our pieces are often named after particular song or are inspired by certain video or artist. Or all at once. We tend to have particular bias towards strong female figures that are both independent and creative. That sounds like …us.

But jokes aside. Please find below three pieces that were created after listening to some really amazing artist that emerged on the scene in the past years. Two of them are created by Rita and one is a photo made by Mal. The artists in question are: Marina and the Diamonds, Florence + Machine and Diana Vickers.

You will find a video next to the image in case you haven’t had a pleasure to get to know the artists:

Marina and the Diamonds

painting by Rita

Florence + Machine

painting by Rita

Diana Vickers

Photo by Malicia

Hope you had fun.

If you want more of that format, let us know. We have got plenty of music inspired Art.